Leadership support for NYO2 is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Founder Patron: Beatrice Santo Domingo.
With additional funding provided by: Ernst & Young LLP
Created by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute (WMI) in the summer of 2016, NYO2 brings
together outstanding young American instrumentalists ages 14-17 for a summer orchestral
training program with a particular focus on attracting talented students from groups
underserved by and underrepresented in the classical orchestral field. Running in
conjunction with the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA)'s
annual summer residency at Purchase College, SUNY, NYO2 offers an opportunity for
participants to play alongside exceptionally talented peers and learn from a world-class
faculty.
As a central part of this free program, NYO2 musicians have the opportunity to work
closely with select members of The Philadelphia Orchestra, an organization with its own
deep commitment to education and artist training, thanks to a partnership formed between
Carnegie Hall and the orchestra in 2016 around this initiative. The program aims to expand
the pool of young musicians across the country equipped with the tools to succeed at the
highest level, particularly those who will bring greater diversity to classical orchestral
music and/or those who have not had access to highly selective training opportunities
through major youth orchestra programs, summer festivals and camps, or similar experiences
outside of their local communities.
NYO2's inaugural season in the summer of 2016 culminated in a free side-by-side concert
with The Philadelphia Orchestra at Verizon Hall led by conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, as
well as a performance at the 23rd Street Armory that featured NYO2, NYO-USA, and members of
The Philadelphia Orchestra, along with local instrumentalists from Philadelphia-area youth
orchestras. Ten musicians from the 2016 NYO2 orchestra have joined the 2017 NYO-USA
roster.
Giancarlo Guerrero is a five-time Grammy Award winner and the music director of the
Nashville Symphony, a position he has held since 2009 and recently committed to through the
2024-2025 season. He has also been named the music director of the Wrocław Philharmonic
Orchestra at the National Forum of Music in Poland, beginning in the 2017-2018
season.
A natural and instinctive musician, Mr. Guerrero has a charismatic presence on the podium.
A passionate proponent of new and contemporary music, he has championed the works of
several of the most respected composers in the US, and has presented eight world premieres
with the Nashville Symphony, including a 2016 performance and Grammy-winning recording of
Michael Daugherty's cello concerto Tales of Hemingway. The 2016-2017 season saw
the release of new albums with the Nashville Symphony dedicated to the music of Richard
Danielpour and Jennifer Higdon. Together with composer Aaron Jay Kernis, Mr. Guerrero
recently developed and guided the creation of the Nashville Symphony Composer Lab &
Workshop to foster and promote new American orchestral music.
Mr. Guerrero has appeared with many prominent North American orchestras, including the
orchestras of Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston,
Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Montreal, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and Philadelphia, as well
as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and National Symphony Orchestra. He has developed a strong
guest conducting profile in Europe, and has worked with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony
Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Orchestre Philharmonique de
Radio France, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Residentie Orchestra in The Hague, and
London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Mr. Guerrero's guest conducting engagements during the 2017-2018 season include the
Boston, Detroit, Queensland, and Sydney symphony orchestras, as well as The Cleveland
Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Residentie Orchestra in The Hague, and Lisbon's
Gulbenkian Orchestra, among others.
Mr. Guerrero made his Houston Grand Opera debut in 2015 conducting Puccini's Madama
Butterfly. Early in his career, Mr. Guerrero worked regularly with the Costa Rican
Lyric Opera, for which he conducted new productions of Carmen, La bohème,
and Rigoletto in recent seasons. In 2008, he gave the Australian premiere of
Osvaldo Golijov's one-act opera Ainadamar at the Adelaide Festival to great
acclaim. Mr. Guerrero served as associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra from 1999 to
2004, music director of Oregon's Eugene Symphony from 2002 to 2009, and principal guest
conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra Miami from 2011 to 2016.
The Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the preeminent orchestras in the world, renowned for
its distinctive sound, desired for its keen ability to capture the hearts and imaginations
of audiences, and admired for a legacy of imagination and innovation on and off the concert
stage. The orchestra is inspiring the future and transforming its rich tradition of
achievement, sustaining the highest level of artistic quality, but also challenging--and
exceeding--that level, by creating powerful musical experiences for audiences at home and
around the world.
Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin's connection to the orchestra's musicians has been
praised by both concertgoers and critics since his inaugural season in 2012. Under his
leadership the orchestra returned to recording, with two celebrated CDs on the prestigious
Deutsche Grammophon label, continuing its history of recording success. The orchestra also
reaches thousands of listeners on the radio with weekly Sunday-afternoon broadcasts on
WRTI-FM.
Philadelphia is home, and the orchestra continues to discover new and inventive ways to
nurture its relationship with its loyal patrons at its home in the Kimmel Center, and also
with those who enjoy the orchestra's area performances at the Mann Center, Penn's Landing,
and other cultural, civic, and learning venues. The orchestra maintains a strong commitment
to collaborations with cultural and community organizations on a regional and national
level, all of which create greater access and engagement with classical music as an art
form.
The Philadelphia Orchestra serves as a catalyst for cultural activity across
Philadelphia's many communities, building an offstage presence as strong as its onstage
one. With Mr. Nézet-Séguin, a dedicated body of musicians, and one of the nation's richest
arts ecosystems, the orchestra has launched its HEAR initiative, a portfolio of integrated
initiatives that promotes Health, champions music Education, eliminates barriers to
Accessing the orchestra, and maximizes impact through Research. The orchestra's
award-winning Collaborative Learning programs engage more than 50,000 students, families,
and community members through programs such as PlayINs, Side-By-Sides, PopUP Concerts, free
Neighborhood Concerts, School Concerts, and residency work in Philadelphia and
abroad.
Through concerts, tours, residencies, presentations, and recordings, The Philadelphia
Orchestra is a global ambassador for Philadelphia and for the US. Having been the first
American orchestra to perform in China (at the request of President Nixon in 1973), the
ensemble today boasts a new partnership with Beijing's National Centre for the Performing
Arts and the Shanghai Oriental Art Centre. The orchestra annually performs at Carnegie Hall
while also enjoying summer residencies in Saratoga Springs, New York, and Vail. For more
information on The Philadelphia Orchestra, please visit philorch.org.
Four-time Grammy Award-winner Esperanza Spalding has brilliantly married genres, pushed
boundaries, and created groundbreaking work in the past decade of her illustrious career.
She has performed at the Academy, Grammy, and Nobel Prize award ceremonies, as well as at
the White House. As a composer, bassist, and vocalist, Ms. Spalding is expansive,
iterative, shape-shifting, open, and progressively innovative. A voracious and magnetic
performer, she has shared the stage with her own revolving ensembles, as well as artists
who include Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Janelle Monáe, and Prince.
Ms. Spalding has recorded seven collaborative and five solo albums, the most recent of
which--Emily's D+Evolution--is a fresh artistic vision that combines a daring
tapestry of music, vibrant imagery, performance art, and stage design. Co-produced by Ms.
Spalding and Tony Visconti, the album is an electrifying take on the power trio, and is
adorned with rich vocal arrangements and touches of synthesizer. Released in 2012, her
album Radio Music Society debuted on Billboard's Top 10. Ms. Spalding's other
albums include Chamber Music Society; the eponymous Esperanza, which was
performed in English, Spanish, and Portuguese; and her 2006 debut, Junjo.
Ms. Spalding began studying the violin, her first instrument, at a time when most children
her age were learning to read. She began playing with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon
in her hometown of Portland at the age of five, and by the time she left the group as a
15-year-old concertmaster, she was already composing and playing acoustic bass
professionally with local bands. The upright bass quickly became the instrument most
central to her work, and she joined her first band, Noise for Pretend, as a bassist and
vocalist. Ms. Spalding became one of the youngest bassists at Portland State University,
later graduating from Berklee College of Music. She went on to become Berklee's
youngest-ever instructor upon graduating at the age of 20.